I never realized that writing could be so heartbreaking. I box away and compartmentalize articles of indiscretion.
I open the time capsule a few years later, when I get around to cleaning, and find what I wanted to forget. It is, at first, difficult to look at the pictures of the past; the love notes, the mixed tapes and the mixed bag of misery I was once attached to.
There are always mixed emotions. First, remembering, in hazy detail, the actions performed in the dark--the sweetness, the sweat and the horrible karaoke. Hopefully, no one else remembers the karaoke.
Then something odd happens. Old feelings emerge from a forgotten place. There is the urge to forget; but, as a writer, I delve deeper and it gets a little wild. I remember every emotion, every action, every grievance, every transgression, every intent and stare at them suspiciously.
I wonder how things ever happened the way they did and wonder why in the hell I ever did those things in the first place and why any rational being would ever enter a banana eating contest at a bar and why there was only one banana. I am going to assign a little blame to the bartender in this particular case, your honor.
Perhaps it is hard to laugh at our own folly, but it is necessary and it gives levity.
So here goes nothing.
I hope that I can accept all of the ugly bits and I hope that I can make them funny. The naughty bits are certainly the most fun and the most forbidden, but I can't undo a doing. I chalk it up to experience and hope that everyone will laugh when they learn later on, in my golden years, that I fell backwards into the president of the university on the dancefloor of the campus watering hole. Blame it on the pinot grigio, the stillettos, the birthday celebration, but above all..blame the bartender. I will be sure to make it a cautionary tale and leave no details to be questioned, because the reader is both the judge and the jury.
I will, above all, laugh. I will laugh when I recount the nights that will live forever in infamy and remember that I am now a changed person, and there is forgiveness in nostalgia. For there are no saints; only reformed drunks and liars. Make no mistake; we are all liars, if only to ourselves.
I will now tell a lie and that lie will recount my former life as a rogue restaurant worker, bartender and drunk. The names and scenarios will be changed to protect the innocent and it will be greatly embellished. I will even take it to the furthest scope of your imagination. I will tell you a tall tale, but I promise you that somewhere beneath all those veils and layers, there is some truth. Pardon me while I forgive myself for my transgressions and I hope that you can forgive me too.
Love and stardust,
Kara
